Rock ’n’ rolling on veggie oil?

Alternative fuel, sleeping on the floor — touring bands are finding ways to cut corners and raise cash so they can stay on the road despite escalating gas prices.

Julie Sherwood

Getting out there, showcasing your talent, achieving name recognition. If you want to make a living in a band, there’s no getting around it, say those in the industry. With gasoline prices headed north, going places is an expensive proposition.

Even so, “bands make more money touring than through records,” said Seth Herman, who grew up in Naples, N.Y., and manages John Brown’s Body. The reggae band from Ithaca, N.Y. and Boston is in its 10th year.

Bands have to tour because in this electronic age of people getting music for free over the Internet and through burning CDs, record sales won’t pay the bills, Herman said.

They also have to tour because the competition is great among new bands, said Joe McCaffrey, a guitarist in Nightmare of You, an indie rock and pop band from Long Island. You need the exposure, said McCaffrey, who also manages Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, a roots reggae and experimental dub band.

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad was recently added to the lineup at Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center, playing Aug. 14 in the Wegmans Reggae Fest at the Shell on the Finger Lakes Community College campus in Hopewell, N.Y.

Giant Panda and John Brown’s Body have done their share of touring, and they don’t plan to pack it in anytime soon.

Giant Panda played 180 shows in 2007. In November, they completed a six-week national tour with 10 West Coast dates. John Brown’s Body did 70 shows last year, with locations spanning Boston to Denver.

This year’s bookings are no less travel-heavy. Herman said when he and band members discussed doing a cross-country tour this coming fall, they said, “Holy cow! It will cost so much to get there.” But Herman said John Brown’s Body, like other bands, is finding ways to cut costs and raise revenue through means other than ticket prices.

“I really don't want to turn fans away by imposing a ‘fuel tax’ on tickets,” he said. “We are thankful that they are willing to spend money on our shows, and I don't want to take advantage of that.”

So they sleep on friends’ floors instead of renting rooms and plump up the merchandise sold at concerts, such as cigarette lighters, T-shirts and other paraphernalia with band logos and photos.

And as for that 1,500-pound trailer of equipment they pull with an old van that gets about 12 miles per gallon, Herman said the $300 or more a day they spend in fuel is still cheaper than renting a tour bus.

When Nightmare of You did a 25-city tour last month logging 10,000 miles, they spent $4,000.

For his part, McCaffrey said both Giant Panda and Nightmare of You travel with a skeleton crew to cut down on costs. It would be nice to have additional crew, he said, such as a guitar technician, a driver, an equipment loader, but “to travel with a big crew is a luxury.”

As for attacking those gas prices, McCaffrey said he has a game plan to save “a few thousand dollars a month.” It involves converting the band’s vans to use waste vegetable oil — the kind generated by fast-food restaurants.

The conversion would save a few thousand dollars a month, said McCaffrey. Though it would involve an initial investment of about $3,000 and collecting and filtering veggie oil while on the road, it would be well worth it, he said.

It would keep the bands on the road, where they need to be, McCaffrey said.

As for those concert fans, their habits are changing as well as the price of fuel and other expenses keep rising.

Herman said a year ago John Brown’s Body typically sold 60 percent to 70 percent of its ticket sales in walk-ups. This year, that trend has nearly reversed, with 50 percent to 60 percent of tickets sales coming from pre-sale. Herman said it shows concert-goers are looking at the bottom line and buying tickets ahead to save with the pre-sale rate.

For those who used to decide at the last minute to attend a concert or who planned in advance but didn’t care if they paid a few extra dollars at they door, they aren’t making up the bulk of concert goers these days.

“People are pinching pennies,” Herman said. If they get to the end of the week without a ticket in hand, he said, they realize they don’t have enough money left to spend on a concert.